The mass production of the Toyota Hyryder will commence next month in India at the Bidadi plant, ahead of the market launch; comes with segment-first features
Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) revealed the Urban Cruiser Hyryder only a few days ago and it has been the talk of the town for its appealing exterior and interior alongside some of the segment-first features it will come aboard with. The midsize SUV will lock horns with Hyundai Creta, Kia Seltos, MG Astor, Skoda Kushaq, Nissan Kicks and VW Taigun.
The Toyota Urban Cruiser Hyryder is developed in association with Maruti Suzuki taking advantage of each other’s strengths in various fields. The Maruti Suzuki iteration, internally codenamed YFG and potentially called Vitara, will make its global debut in India in the third week of this month and the mass production of both SUVs will begin next month at TKM’s Bidadi plant in Karnataka.
The Hyryder will be retailed in E, S, G and V variants and courtesy of two engines, it will be available in an extensive range. One of the main highlights of the five-seater is the presence of the segment-first strong hybrid powertrain, which enables a range of around 25 kmpl in electric-only mode and the overall fuel efficiency could be more than 25 kmpl.
The self-charging hybrid system is spawned out of Toyota’s expertise in this technology as the 1.5-litre TNGA Atkinson Cycle unit has a combined power output of around 115 PS. The other engine is sourced from Maruti Suzuki as the 1.5-litre four-cylinder mild-hybrid K15C petrol mill with mild hybrid tech kicks out 103 PS maximum power and 135 Nm of peak torque.
Since the powertrain is already available in the new Brezza, facelifted Ertiga and XL6 with high local content, it could aid in positioning the Toyota Hyryder aggressively again rivals and possibly undercut some of them. Thus, we do expect the starting price of the midsize SUV to be slightly under Rs. 10 lakh and it could all the way up to Rs. 18 lakh for the top-spec trim (ex-showroom).
It will be interesting to see how the upcoming Vitara gets positioned as well and the Toyota Hyryder will also become the first midsize petrol hybrid SUV to boast an AWD configuration.